In the retail industry, the largest expenditures are typically the cost of the goods sold followed closely by the cost of labor expended. With particular regard to the retail grocery or supermarket industry, the impetus to reduce labor costs has focused on reducing or eliminating the amount of time required to handle and/or process the items or goods to be purchased by a user or customer. To this end, there have been a number of self-service checkout terminal concepts developed which attempt to substantially eliminate the need for a checkout clerk.
A self-service checkout terminal is a system which is operated by a customer without the aid of a checkout clerk. In such a system, the customer scans individual items for purchase across a scanner and then places the scanned item into a grocery bag, if desired. The customer then pays for his or her purchase either at the self-service checkout terminal if so equipped, or at a central payment area which is staffed by a store employee. Thus, a self-service checkout terminal permits a customer to select, itemize, and in some cases pay for his or her purchase without the assistance of the retailer's personnel.
A major concern that retailers have when evaluating a self-service checkout terminal is the level of shrinkage that may occur as a result of a customer's use of the terminal. What is meant herein by the term "shrinkage" is the number, percentage, or dollar value of items that is taken or otherwise removed from the retailer's store by a customer without having first been properly paid for by the customer. It should be appreciated that shrinkage may be the result of an intentional act of the customer (e.g. theft or fraud), or may be the result of an unintentional act of the customer (e.g. the case of when the customer leaves the store with an item inadvertently left on the bottom rack of a shopping cart that was not paid for by the customer during the checkout procedure).
In traditional (i.e. assisted) checkout systems, the clerk employed by the retailer to operate the checkout terminal provides a level of protection against shrinkage. In particular to the case of unintentional shrinkage, the clerk is generally trained by the retailer to visually scan or otherwise check the shopping cart for the presence of unscanned items prior to the end of the checkout procedure. However, a customer typically has little or no training in the operation of a self-service checkout terminal prior to his or her initial use of the checkout terminal. Hence, in the case of a self-service checkout terminal, the terminal itself must provide the necessary protection against shrinkage.
What is needed therefore is a self-service checkout terminal which reduces shrinkage during the operation thereof. What is further needed is a self-service checkout terminal which assists or otherwise aids the customer in the use thereof in a manner which is conducive to shrinkage reduction.